How a father's love can save a community (guest column)

12:31 AM,
Jun. 15, 2014

Yusef Shakur

Written by

Yusef Shakur
Detroit Free Press guest writer

I was not an easy child to raise. My mother would drink, and then she would discipline me, so simple whippings would become beatings. And I wasn't about to strike my mother back, so all those beatings that she poured into me, I poured into other people.

By the time I was in high school, I developed a reputation as a fighter. I had assaulted three or four teachers, and earned the recognition of some of the older street guys. ...